Supervolcano (2005)

Among my least favorite films of 2022 was Don’t Look Up, the smug but unfocused disaster film that received an inexplicable Best Picture nomination. Despite being someone who would theoretically agree with a lot of its message, I loathed Don’t Look Up, wishing it had been a smarter satire rather than the sneering mess that merely insisted it was smart while wasting a terrific ensemble cast. 

I thought a lot about Don’t Look Up while watching Supervolcano, the 2005 Canadien TV movie that opens with the ludicrous proclamation that what follows is a “true story that hasn’t happened yet.” That statement struck me as a warning to expect an irreverent take on global disasters. I buckled up for “so bad it’s almost fun” filmmaking on the level of the Sharknado franchise that SyFy coasted on for years.

But this, it turns out, was a false alarm. Supervolcano is self-serious to a fault, a cautionary tale told with a grim earnestness that belies its low production values and dated effects to warn the viewing public about the dangers of underestimating nature’s fury and withholding the truth from the public. The points the movie makes are underlined so hard that the paper tears but it makes a commendable effort to be instructive and scientifically-grounded. Watching in 720p via YouTube should have been a trying experience, particularly with its bloated two-hour runtime, but, unlike Don’t Look Up, Supervolcano is focused and clear in its messaging and didn’t leave me rolling my eyes or shaking my head. 

Supervolcano opens ominously on a grainy video of geologist Rick Lieberman (Michael Riley). Unshaven and coated by thick ash, he has thoughts to share about the disastrous super eruption at Yellowstone that has leveled the western United States. How did they reach that point? Unfortunately Rick knows: it was both his dismissal and his refusal to stand up to authorities that allowed the cataclysmic volcanic activity to kill millions of Americans. The rest of the film lets follows the events leading up to this disaster as well as some of the aftermath.

Much more happens in Supervolcano than my meager summary conveys, but I’ll stop there because, if you’ve seen more than one disaster movie, you’ll already know the drill. All your favorite characters are here! We’ve got the arrogant scientist set to be humbled, the inquisitive reporter certain somebody’s lying, the stodgy bureaucrat insistent that profits and calm reign supreme, the undeveloped family forced to flee to safety, the newcomer who conveniently needs every scenario explained to them, and the distinctive coworkers with just enough personality to feel a twinge of sadness when they die before a commercial break. 

Likewise: all your favorite scenes are here too! The tense command room slowly encroached upon by nature. The vehicle racing away from an early strike with huge CGI elements chasing them down. The multigenerational escape that aims to imbue some sentimentality. News story after news story certifying the danger. You don’t need to be a Roland Emmerich scholar to find the biggest components here familiar. 

Derivative though its action is, Supervolcano makes some nifty adjustments to their presentation that work. Mostly (but not exclusively) presented as a documentary, the film frequently cuts to mock interviews with cast members discussing the science or significance of a particular occurrence. Films like this that aim for some semblance of realism often require characters to talk at the screen to explain things and, while Supervolcano definitely has that too, I liked the documentary framing device because it allowed those word vomit scenes to feel less contrived. Along those lines, the movie also weaves in archival footage from other real-life disasters that enhance even the most far-fetched moments with a dash of realism. Like those interviews, these clips lend an authentic feel to what is otherwise undeniably a TV movie. 

Not everything about this documentary framing works though. While the film mostly sticks to that device, at times it wanders away and focuses tightly on Rick or another character caught in a situation that couldn’t possibly have been filmed under that guise. Nevertheless, those scenes are filmed with the same crude handheld cameras as ones meant to be “real” within the film. At its best I barely noticed, but many times that bobbing camera work removed any semblance of a cinematic feel to the proceedings. (Say what you will about Emmerich’s opus but his stuff always looks professional.)

Nevertheless, one can’t deny the effort to take this “Yellowstone killed us all!” premise seriously. I mentioned the underlining and that occurs throughout the production. The script, the style, the cinematography, even the foreboding but peppy score—all tell the viewer exactly how to feel in every single scene. There is a determined effort not to let any viewer miss any statement or warning here, not unlike an emergency alert siren. 

And, as a credit to the team behind Supervolcano, what they caution against is meaningful. Although plot armor protects Rick from an ultimate reckoning, the script never lets him off the hook for dismissing the dangers posed by Yellowstone. When he refuses to counter an “everything is fine” claim at a press conference, we are told this is wrong; his character laments his cowardice openly too. The pesky reporter isn’t treated as a nuisance due for grisly comeuppance but as an inquisitive voice of reason who knows something is up. Major characters die; realistic-sounding science fills every scene. I don’t know if the statistics they cite are bunk—this is a “true story”, after all—but there’s an authentic feel to even the hokiest moments. I appreciate the lengths this team went to to make their messages about taking precautions seriously, standing up to power, and cooperatively rising to meet even the most terrifying occasion carry some meaning. 

Look, Supervolcano is as blunt as the flat side of a 2x4, heavy handed in every way and allergic of subtlety. There’s barely any depth to characters—even Riley’s Rick who receives the most screen time—the graphics and effects are dated, and the “true story” it tells is laughable (unless I too am falling into the trap Rick did). But there’s a clear vision here and a determination to treat the subject with dignity and earnest effort and I appreciate that. The focus and consistency go a long way toward elevating this from a joke TV movie I was challenged to review on a lark. Supervolcano has its flaws—a lot of them—but there are tons of good ideas in here and I didn’t even hate watching it. It could be worse: instead of watching this, I could be smothered to death by a layer of ash from a supervolcano that we should have been warned about. Hell, it could honestly be even worse: 

I could be watching Don’t Look Up.